Govt warns public hospitals against post-mortem fees
Communications officers from different government ministries departments and agencies and health experts interact after a USAID Social behaviour change activity in Kampala on Friday. PHOTO | STEPHEN OTAGE
What you need to know:
- The ministry said post-mortem is a mandatory exercise , which is paid for by the government, to help with the detection of infectious diseases.
The Ministry of Health has said it is illegal for government hospitals to charge fees to conduct post-mortem examinations.
The ministry said post-mortem is a mandatory exercise , which is paid for by the government, to help with the detection of infectious diseases.
Addressing journalists on Friday, Dr Richard Kabanda, the Commissioner of Health Promotion, Education and Communication at the Ministry of Health, said the public should not pay for post-mortem even if the deceased died at home because all dead bodies must undergo the exercise to ascertain the cause of death.
“It happened in Mubende during the outbreak of Ebola where people were dying. People started burying relatives quietly without notifying the authorities. The essence of notifying the authorities is to enable the deceased to undergo post-mortem so that in case it is because of an infectious disease, the government can respond quickly and avoid further spread of that disease,” he said.
Asked why government hospitals charge relatives for this exercise, he said facilities are taking advantage of the ignorance of the public. He added that even if the dead person had another condition such as cancer and the relatives did not know about it, the post-mortem result will alert them about the existence of cancer in their lineage.
He made the statement last week during a five-day trainers of trainers workshop on public health risk communication for public health communicators, journalists and communications officers from different government ministries, departments and agencies. The workshop, organised by USAID, aimed at equipping participants with communication skills regarding emerging and re-emerging diseases in the country and how to communicate about them to their audiences.
Dr Immaculate Nabukenya, a lecturer at Makerere University and also a worker at the Ministry of Health, said: “Diseases such as Foot and Mouth are transmitted when infected cattle move from one place to another, people get sleeping sickness when they invade infested forests, we know that rabies is transmitted during breeding seasons when dogs are mating, and we know anthrax happens when cows eat all the grass and leave the soil exposed.”
Mr Venanio Ahabwe, an official working with the USAID Social behaviour change activity, said the training is part of the organisation’s support for strengthening one health reporting in Uganda, whereby the health of humans and animals and happenings in the environment have linkages and if not properly managed, any or all of three aspects can cause or spread certain diseases.
